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Birmingham Post chooses Warner Classics' Foulds recording as CD of the Year

On 28th December 2004, Christopher Morley chose his favourite recordings of the year for the Birmingham Post. The Warner Classics recording of John Foulds' Mirage, Three Mantras and Apotheosis came a very clear number one.
"Foulds: Mirage, Three Mantras, Lyra Celtica, Apotheosis - CBSO/Oramo (Warner Classics 2564 61525-2)
"But towering head and shoulders above all the rest is my CD of the year, the fruit of a visionary unfolding of the music of an even more neglected composer in a series of concerts at Symphony Hall by the CBSO and its Finnish music director who is such a champion of British music.
"John Foulds, orchestral cellist turned composer, died in Calcutta in 1939, having moved from England to India to pursue his interest in the musics and philosophies of that alluring sub-continent. His greatest music, mixing the opulent textures andsumptuous colourings of Wagner, Strauss, Mahler and Elgar (all of whom he will have played and some of them known) with the microtonal scales of nonwestern idioms, communicates powerfully and rewardingly.
"There is so much on this generous release, recorded in Symphony Hall earlier this year, to enthuse about: the post-Brahmsian homage to violinist Joseph Joachim which is Apotheosis, Daniel Hope the sweet-toned soloist here; the mysterious allure of the neo-Hebridean Lyra Celtica, with soprano Susan Bickley mesmeric in the wordless microtones Foulds demands of her; the primal energy of Three Mantras; and the Straussian vision of Mirage, all urgently, compellingly delivered by a topform CBSO under the inspired Sakari Oramo. If you don't already own this, get it now."